"I think the experience of going to the theater, of having an actor in front of us, is going to seem even more intense after all these months in which relationships between people have been very often through screens». Ignacio García, director of the Almagro Classical Theater Festival, yesterday explained what awaits the approximately 6,000 spectators who have already bought their tickets for this year's event. Last night, the Almagro Festival debuted with In another strange kingdom , a play in which the actors of the Young National Classical Theater Company recite Lope de Vega's words so that they refer to the reality of this 2020 that conditions everything.

We are talking about the pandemic , of course: when the government decreed the state of alarm, Ignacio García's team had contracts signed or written for 71 companies, the program was done and they had scheduled a presentation of the poster in Madrid on April 2. "We went home thinking that we were going to stop for two weeks and we found two months of very difficult work," explains García.

“At that time, the festival changed I don't know how many times. We changed the calendar, the capacity, the spaces, the companies we could count on ... We had moments when we saw it very difficult to follow but the board of trustees made a clear decision, "explains García.

In the end, Almagro is presented this year with four stages, 44 representations by 26 companies, 9,000 tickets for sale, capacity reduced to 50% (the regional regulations allow up to 75%), an honor award for Ana Belén and schedules staggered in four shifts so that the public does not accumulate in the restaurants at 22.30. There will be no foreign companies or parades. "We could make a calculation: the Almagro Festival of 2020 is a little more than a third of what the competitions of other years were. However, closing the poster has taken us 10 times more effort than any other year", explains García . "But it was worth it. We know the symbolic value of being here again, we know that we are radiating hope for so many people who long to return to the theater.

The word "symbolic" appears a couple of times in the conversation with García, "but that does not mean that this year's edition is not real." Almagro 2020 maintains the course that the festival has followed since García arrived at its address.

"Almagro is the Siglo de Oro theater's natural reserve , but we also want it to be something more", explains García. "We have to be open to everything that is outside the Calderón, Lope and Tirso canon." And that includes: theater made in Latin America, theater made by women, theater made in languages ​​other than Spanish (a play in Valencian will be performed in Almagro) ...

Diversity is the means that García pursues for a more complex and suggestive end: «A theater festival can be more than a container of cultural products . A festival can offer a way of coexistence. In our case, the model is life in the corrals of comedies, where the social classes were mixed and the women had a space of freedom that they did not find in other places ».

It only remains to talk about money. Is the Almagro Classical Theater Festival viable on a scale like the current one? “This is a survival edition, but we have the advantage that we depend 35% on the box office. No sponsorship, no institution has abandoned.

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